Larviparity and Pueriparity

« Les Cerastes comme außi les viperes en toutes parts, rendent leurs petis en vie, comme aussi faict la Salamandre « (Belon 1554, p. 122). The above quotation (“Cerastes as vipers in general give birth to living young like the Salamander”) is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, written evidence that a urodele (Salamandra) is viviparous. Belon (l.c.) obviously assumed knowledge of viviparity in Salamandra. Viviparity of vipers was described already in the fourth century B.C. by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (Peck 1970). It is not the aim of the present overview to summarize the history of “viviparity” in salamanders (for further readings see Francis 1934; Greven and Thiesmeier 1994; Greven 2002). However, the definition of viviparity and the question whether ovoviviparity (often defined as birth of aquatic larvae), (true) viviparity (birth of metamorphosed juveniles) or, when emphasizing (the hard to recognize) trophic relationships as crucial, lecithotrophy (embryos are exclusively yolk dependent) and matrotrophy (young are supplied with additional maternal nutrition) occur among salamanders always has been a matter of debate (e.g., Salthe and Mecham 1974; Wake 1982; 1993; Thiesmeier and Haker 1990; Greven and Thiesmeier 1994; Blackburn 1995; Greven 1998). A generally accepted definition of viviparity does not exist. Use of the term viviparity in its literal meaning, i.e., the birth of live young, implies that oviparity, i.e., egg laying, used commonly as the converse of viviparity, is (though perhaps oversubtlely argued) the birth of dead offspring (see the note in Packard 1989). In the following I make, therefore, the state of the born progeny the basis of terminology as suggested previously (see Greven 2002) and distinguish among urodeles: oviparous species that deposit eggs fertilized Larviparity and Pueriparity